Scientists were able to curb weight gain, improve metabolism and improve the efficacy of insulin in mice by engineering them to express a specific human enzyme, IKKbeta, in their fat tissue, but there was a significant cost; widespread inflammation.

The relationship between fat, inflammation, and insulin performance is complex. The conventional wisdom is that obesity leads to inflammation which contributes to insulin resistance. In this study, the researchers changed the sequence of events for transgenically engineered mice by inducing inflammation via the enzyme IKKbeta in their fatty tissue before they were obese. The result for metabolism was much more positive than for control mice who were left unaltered but were fed the same diets.

A prehistoric bronze artifact made from a cast has been found in Alaska, apparently a buckle.

There was no Bronze Age in Alaska, though it existed several thousand years earlier in Europe and Asia.  Perhaps some of the earliest Inupiat Eskimos in northwest Alaska, thought to have migrated into Alaska from adjacent Siberia some 1,500 years ago, might have brought the object with them from the other side of the Bering Strait. The Inupiat Eskimos are believed to have occupied Cape Espenberg from about A.D. 1000 until the mid-1800s, said Hoffecker. They are part of the indigenous Eskimo culture that lives in Earth's circumpolar regions like Alaska, Siberia and Canada.

Red blood cells regenerate every four months but the lining of the intestine regenerates itself every few days. The cells that help humans absorb food are constantly being produced and the various cell types that do this come from stem cells that reside deep in the inner recesses of the accordion-like folds of the intestines, called villi and crypts. 

Like ancient burial crypts, these adult stem cells are something of a mystery. Two types of intestinal stem cells have been proposed to exist but the relationship between them has been unclear. One type of stem cell divides slowly and resides at the sides of intestinal crypts. The other divides much more quickly and resides at the bottom of the crypts.

The moon has no global magnetic field yet  Apollo astronauts found magnetized rocks on the lunar surface.

A new hypothesis proposes a mechanism that could have generated a magnetic field on the moon early in its history. The 'geodynamo' that generates Earth's magnetic field is powered by heat from the inner core, which drives complex fluid motions in the molten iron of the outer core.  The moon is too small to support that type of dynamo but the researchers write in Nature that an ancient lunar dynamo could have arisen from stirring of the moon's liquid core driven by the motion of the solid mantle above it.

Anecdotes are not data, the saying goes, but people sure believe them.  An article in JAMA says doctors should consider the use of narrative, patient stories and testimonials, to boost public acceptance of health issues such as cancer screenings and vaccination mandates.

They advocate "counternarratives" to neutralize personal stories, think celebrities in the news media sharing their health knowledge, that seek to support quackery like homeopathy and anti-vaccine beliefs, along with narratives about the process of scientific study and discovery, to unmask the often hidden work of researchers and guidelines committees.

If you are of a certain age, perhaps your parents told you to eat slowly. They may have said something about better digestion but if you were one of many poor people it also had to do with feeling fuller on less food. 

Common wisdom was your brain did not keep up with your stomach so if you slowed down, your brain had time to realize the stomach was full. In general experience, that seems to hold up. You rarely see obese people who eat really slow.(1) Two new studies by researchers at the University of Rhode Island bear this out and found that men eat significantly faster than women, heavier people eat faster than slimmer people and refined grains are consumed faster than whole grains, among other findings.